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Posted: 27 May 2015, 17:24
by Muirium
DanielT wrote: seebart wrote: I have lost my basic French skills over the years. Both French and German are complicated languages compared to English.
You should see Romanian, it's a pain

I like German a lot, more than English. And French I've learned to be able to read French comics (BD)
Fortunate indeed are in the speak we the English, complexity compared favoured alternate speakings of the abroad simplicity!
(I can't even begin to understand cases and grammatical gender and such, thanks to never growing up with it.)
Posted: 27 May 2015, 18:36
by kbdfr
Compared to other common languages, English has fewer articles and declinations, that's all.
In English you don't have to bother whether a table is ♀, like in French, or ♂, like in German.
It makes English apparently simpler, which results in everybody feeling proficient and using it in a sort of "restricted mode",
which in turn contributes to impoverishing the language and everybody feeling even more proficient.
A good example for that is the universal use of "if" instead of "whether".
And what about the permanent mistaking of "it's" for "its" or "then" for "than"?
And oral English is a pain.
From how it's written there's no way to find out how a word is pronounced, you just have to
know,
see the famous
ghoti example.
or word pairs like floor and poor, or the different pronunciation in "I read" and "I have read".
Compared to that, French is a simple language
and German a very simple one

Posted: 27 May 2015, 18:50
by Muirium
Yeah, I'm no fan of English. Objectively, it's a hodge podge of lapsed rules and stolen imports with the craziest spelling rules imaginable. Cruel to inflict it on the world, but there you go! It also stunts your desire and capacity to learn a second language when it is your first.
Put yourself in the place of native English speakers. Foreign languages seem truly, maddeningly foreign. I still have no idea what accusative is, or desire to find out, despite and because of passing high school German! And the whole world speaks back in English at you anyway so why bother?
Its and it's isn't getting any better, now we're typing on glass. I'm constantly dismissing autocorrections for the wrong one, and I'm in the minority who knows the difference!
Re: Great/Interesting Finds
Posted: 27 May 2015, 18:54
by seebart
Yeah the longer I use softkeys on glass the more I hate it. But typing on glass in German is a disaster. I am a "fan" of the English language. Don't ask me why.
Posted: 27 May 2015, 18:57
by Muirium
Well, all right, I do like English, as I obviously understand it and use it incessantly! But I'm well aware of its thick catalogue of faults. Including our inability to agree on quite how to spell that.
Phonetic spelling: way of the future! Kinda like communism and international law.
Posted: 27 May 2015, 18:58
by kbdfr
Muirium wrote: […] I still have no idea what accusative is […]
It is very similar to the French "complément d'objet direct",
if that is any help

Posted: 27 May 2015, 18:59
by Muirium
Fun fact: whenever English speakers burst into a smidge of French, it's because they want to speak in italic. Seems to be linguistic sauce.
Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:01
by kbdfr
Muirium wrote: Fun fact: whenever English speakers burst into a smidge of French, it's because they want to speak in italic. Seems to be linguistic sauce.
I suppose you mean
native English speakers

Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:05
by Muirium
I implied it, by saying it already a few posts above. And if I were any posher I'd have some fancy French term to slap out and waggle around to prove it!
Re: Great/Interesting Finds
Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:16
by derzemel
This is linguistics talk is turning very interesting. Can we open a separate thread for it?

Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:19
by dzhoou
Dunno why, but I never make its/it's mistakes, nor I can understand that many people's tendency to...
Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:24
by Muirium
People learn by voice. They sound the same, so they type the same. Which is why English's loco woof-moo transcription rules are so dastardly bastardly.
(This is off-topic-Thority. Every thread gets to linguistics after a while, then recovers again. This one's long enough it's probably done so a few times before.)
Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:27
by kbdfr
dzhoou wrote: Dunno why, but I never make its/it's mistakes, nor I can understand
that many people's tendency to...
[cough…] Seems nobody is perfect
derzemel wrote: This is linguistics talk is turning very interesting. Can we open a separate thread for it?

Perhaps Muirium could cut those linguistics posts and paste them into a new thread in the off-topic section.
Edit: hadn't seen µ's previous post

Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:28
by Muirium
Never!
(I'd have to click buttons and stuff. Let's just keep derailing!)
Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:34
by kbdfr
Muirium wrote: People learn by voice. They sound the same, so they type the same. Which is why […]
I'm not quite sure.
I've never seen "Lachs"* written "Lax" or "Fuchs"** written "Fux" in German,
although in both cases it would be the exact same pronunciation.
Edit:
* salmon
** fox
Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:40
by kbdfr
And by the way, in French you sometimes have several words pronounced exactly the same, for example:
sot (dumb)
saut (jump)
seau (bucket)
sceau (seal)
Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:41
by Muirium
Ah, I see a pattern there. French was contrived by a humorist who wanted self writing aquatic animal training puns!
As with any language, some beating is required for successful acquisition. I remember well the huge fight I had with my teacher when they tried to make me believe the past tense of read is also spelled read, and not red. What did they think: I was thick? Come off it! This whole class is a sham!
Posted: 27 May 2015, 19:52
by dzhoou
Muirium wrote: People learn by voice. They sound the same, so they type the same. Which is why English's loco woof-moo transcription rules are so dastardly bastardly.
(This is off-topic-Thority. Every thread gets to linguistics after a while, then recovers again. This one's long enough it's probably done so a few times before.)
That's what I figured also.
Linguistics isn't off-topic. It's what all keyboards serve ultimately!

Posted: 27 May 2015, 20:58
by XMIT
Posted: 27 May 2015, 20:59
by jou
Coming from a Chinese background, the very concept of cases and gendered nouns are completely foreign for me. Even after speaking German for more than two decades, I still get declension mostly wrong.
Fun fact: Mandarin
has only around 1300 distinct syllables which makes puns with homophones very easy.
Posted: 28 May 2015, 11:25
by HzFaq
Posted: 28 May 2015, 11:31
by scottc
Ooh, nice! I've never seen a black DE 1800 with 1.5u mods, let alone one with MX clears before.
Posted: 28 May 2015, 11:43
by shreebles
Very cool, but not cheap! I wanted a WKL 1800 for the longest time, but not for that price...

Posted: 28 May 2015, 11:45
by Khers
If only it had been ANSI...
Posted: 28 May 2015, 13:04
by ramnes
The switches on this model are really smooth. Definitely worth it if you're a MX Clear lover.
Posted: 28 May 2015, 13:08
by photekq
Mmm.. 1991 clears..
Now if only I could get a NIB 1814..
68EUR for that shiny thing.. no thanks

Posted: 28 May 2015, 13:14
by ramnes
Posted: 28 May 2015, 19:09
by mr_a500
I hope somebody here gets this and lets us know what switch it has (I suspect hall effect):
$_57.JPG
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-MDS-his ... 1686616725
I'd get it if it wasn't in the UK.
I also wonder about this (probably Key Tronic):
$_58.JPG
http://www.ebay.com/itm/171800702433
Military spec!
Posted: 28 May 2015, 19:18
by XMIT
Oh man, it even has an XMIT mode indicator.
No more keyboards until more sales are completed!

Re: Great/Interesting Finds
Posted: 28 May 2015, 19:27
by seebart
damn those are nice mr_a500. I'll be watching those two in the UK. I have proxy options in the UK...